Adventures in the Making
by Angeladex
Summary: Aravis and Shasta through the book, sharing their takes on certain things. Tags!: tw: mention of child abuse, tw: mention of suicide, tw: glorified suicide (These were all mentioned in HhB canon) tw: body horror Chap 6: Perseverance. Still separated. Shasta and Aravis both continue on with trying to meet up again. With varying success.
1. Strength

Strength.

She knows what it is to be strong. She has grown, clever and thriving, despite all that her father hoped for her.

She isn't like the other girls. The daughters of his friends, who care for nothing but what they should care about. They want only jewels and dresses and litters and parties. She wants for other things. Lessons, that she might know more about things she has questions about. She learns etiquette, and horseback riding, and is rather horrible at embroidery and dancing, but she still tries. She argues with her rhetoric tutor, which is encouraged, and then argues more with her history tutor, which is not.

She uses her etiquette lessons when her father introduces her to his new wife. She uses rhetoric to engage in polite conversation with her new stepmother while also wholeheartedly disagreeing with her.

She learns the game. The game that her stepmother has been playing at for many more years than Aravis' scant fourteen.

Her small pleasures are slowly taken away. Her favorite soaps and fragrances are replaced with new ones that her stepmother prefers. Her favorite servant, Fatima, is reassigned to work in a different part of the estate. Her tutors are dismissed and replaced with strangers who stress teaching Aravis dull, unimportant things she doesn't desire to learn.

She is subjected to uncomfortable fashions and trends that she feels silly and unnecessary. She is put on a diet and exercise regime, and dressed in ridiculous, flouncy clothes, and her wardrobe grows increasingly, and yet Aravis can never find the clothes she likes wearing.

She retaliates. She consents to the exercise regime but convinces her father to let her complete it with her elder brother, who is learning the art of swordplay, and doing exercises to strengthen his body in preparation for wielding weapons. She destroys her wardrobe in a purposeful accident, and accompanies the servants who buy the replacements, to ensure that the styles are to her liking.

She finds solace in riding. There is something comfortable about her new mare, and she enjoys racing the wind, and feeling it strip her problems away.

Then she discovers that she is betrothed.

* * *

Strength.

He knows the worth of strength. He isn't sure if it's a word he would use to describe himself. He doesn't feel very strong, most days. But he is, after a fashion.

He knows the strength of preparing a meal, only to have it dismissed as nary a worthy accomplishment.

He knows the strength of completing chores and tasks beyond his ability, and continuing to work at them, and to try again and again.

He knows the strength of taking a beating, and then getting up the next morn anyhow, and going on with life, like it's all right. Like it's normal. Like it's deserved.

Though it's not. None of it.

He awakens each day and feels generally optimistic. Perhaps today will be a good day. Gods willing, his Father would catch many fish. Gods ever more willing, perhaps the fish would be sold well at the market. Perhaps today would be a day of leisure and sunsets, and conversation with his Father, where he could ask an inquiry, or ask for a story, and it will be answered or given kindly.

He doesn't see it as strength, and yet it is. It is not the kind of strength he has been brought up to value, but there is strength, nonetheless, in holding out hope and faith, when reality dictates that good days happen only a handful of days in a fortnight.

He wonders, after a particularly bad day, when he is nursing a scrape he'd sustained during the latest beating and blowing on it to lessen the sting he felt after dipping the offending injury in the donkey bucket to clean it, what it means to be happy.

He reflects on the day up to this point, and smiles. He was happy, earlier. He accomplished his tasks, and saw a juggler practicing down by the surf, tossing small rocks into the air and trying not to let them drop. He'd awakened early enough to see his father off and ask about what he wanted for dinner, so that Shasta might go about procuring it, if he were able. He'd seen a magnificent starfish, and felt a breeze come in from the North, blowing away, for a moment, the stink of fish, and decay, and replacing it with something…else. Something more.

He decides to claim the victories of the day and puts aside the beating. Even the best days have things in them that keep them from being perfect. And the day isn't over yet.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

I've read Horse and His Boy four times this year already. I'm obsessed.

Take it! More to come!

~Angela


	2. Bravery

Brave.

She has never felt braver than she does that night; when she rides her pretty mare to a place of comfort and familiarity. A place of solitude.

A finer place she can't think of, to die.

She is inept at continuing this game. Not when she has more of a stake in it. It costs too much, and her victories are too small. Too fleeting.

She weeps. She can't help it here, at the last. She had hopes for her life and the way it would go, and she simply can't accept being married off to a man older than her father. To be a pretty thing in his household, where her purpose would be…what? To want for jewels and pretties and to allow her old husband to sire her fat children—sons who would grow up able to marry who they would, able to do what they wanted, even as she…waited. In a pretty cage, surrounded by pretty things.

Slowly going mad.

She isn't brave enough to face that. Not brave enough to accept it quietly, but certainly not brave enough to fight it.

Because what would become of her, then? A daughter who doesn't do her duty by her father could easier be killed. And her father had a new wife, now. To bear him more sons.

In this way, at least, stubbornly, the choice is her own. Her life is her own to do with what she will. And if she chooses to end it, it is still _her choice_.

She unsheathes the knife. Admires the way the jeweled hilt looks in her hand. This is beauty. Tools that fulfil a function and serve as useful. Not silks and scarlets and flounces that have no purpose.

"Oh. Oh dear. Please. Please don't. You can't. Please. What good will it do?"

The voice is unfamiliar to her, and Aravis jumps in surprise when she realizes _it's coming from her horse_.

"To be alive surely can't be so horrid. To see the sky, and to taste the grass –well, not you, surely, unless you do like grass? You human sort don't, usually, and it's so peculiar—but what of the dead? By no means should you want to…to give up your life. Please don't, mistress. I couldn't bear it."

"You're…talking. You can talk?" Aravis says stupidly and realizes it's quite rude. This surely isn't unheard of. She knows of lands far to the North, where a Lion is seen as a God, and even the trees themselves dance. So why so strange a Beast that can talk? "I'm sorry," she says quickly, before the Horse can even begin to answer her. "I never knew you could…could talk."

"Yes. And I didn't know it was so bad as all that. I knew you'd been quarrelling with your family, and angry. I came with you, if you remember, to buy your new clothes, and I carried you to all of your lessons you loved, and the new ones you hated. But I had no idea you hated them this much. I am sorry, dear. I want to help."

It's…nice. To have someone agree with her. And Aravis realizes that really, going it all alone is too hard. Not against a game she only just learned and hasn't had practice at. And perhaps accepting help isn't that bad.

"I think," the mare continued, in a thoughtful way, "we can even help each other. And then it's not so much a feeling of failing alone, more than succeeding together, if you get my meaning."

"I think we have much to discuss," Aravis says frankly. "And for starters, perhaps you could tell me your name? Because I believe, just now, calling you 'Woodsmoke' would be quite silly."

"Oh heavens, yes," the mare is quick to agree, and offers a horsey whinny that Aravis smiles to realize is a laugh.

It feels better, sharing her burden with someone else. And perhaps Bravery is just being able to recognize your limit and ask for help in the first place.

* * *

Brave.

It feels cowardly. Running away.

But perhaps it's a matter of perspective. Or balance. Because it's only good sense Shasta run from this man that would be his master, if he's as hard on his slaves as Bree says. Only good sense to trust the word of this good Horse, if only because Bree trusted him first. Bree spoke first to him, knowing full well that, in staying silent, things wouldn't necessarily change for the worse for him, being the war Horse of a Military leader. But in speaking up, and helping Shasta, he'd explained, perhaps things could go better for them both.

The facts are still there, though, whether the actions are justified or not; he's doing something that is still wrong. If he's caught, he'll be hanged as a horse thief. Or perhaps have his hands hacked off.

What is bravery, if not taking risks? Weighing consequences and then doing it anyway?

Perhaps it really is selfish, though; if he stays behind, he'll be the slave of a cruel Tarkaan, and likely put in chains and put to work in a field, if what Bree says is right. He's fairer of skin than the other Calormenes, and not skilled at the kind of work the Tarkaan would demand of him.

Shasta senses in his bones that he wouldn't come to much success in such a hard life. It would kill him, in all likelihood. For all that Arsheesh had treated Shasta a slave his whole life, it wasn't so bad. Mending fishing nets, preparing meals, feeding the donkey, and cleaning its stable. Not at all as taxing as would be toiling and laboring under a hot sun all day long, no hope of a refreshing dip in the ocean, if he desired it, or even going at his own pace with easy access to food and water.

It's the best choice. Going. Despite the risk, to go with Bree, and to take the adventure together…thinking of it that way seems right. He's making a choice right for him, and right for Bree. And it's fair. He's made his choices up 'til now for the fisherman. Because he told himself it was the duty of a boy to do for his father.

And it's hard, he doesn't deny that. He is forced to become a quick study at riding, if they are to make any sort of pace at all, and it's not easy. He falls, and he fatigues quickly, and has to keep going.

When they come to a village, they separate, and Shasta feels his heart thrumming through his body, making his every ache throb.

And more stealing. More visions of being caught, and having his hands cut off, and Bree wondering whatever became of him, or worse; he imagines finding Bree, after, with bleeding stumps for hands, and trying still to ride. To Narnia and the North.

Then, he feels a sort of calm clarity fill his frenzied thoughts.

 _Courage, Dearheart. Be brave. For you are on the path I intend for you, and you are not alone._

And he _doesn't_ feel alone. Though he knows no one walks with him, through these villages bordering the sea, as Bree walks around, out of sight, his breath comes easier, and he feels less…weighed upon. Lighter.

And he realizes that a large part of bravery isn't that the dread goes away; indeed, he feels it still, in the hollow of his chest, like a physical weight.

Brave means doing the thing anyway. Despite the dread.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

Let's try this thing where I keep going, hey? Post semi-regularly? I love writing, and I love writing fanfic, so let's just do it.

Thanks for the reviews this has already gotten! HhB has somehow become my favorite Narnia book? And it used to firmly be my seventh favorite book. XD I'll keep trying! It's hard to keep up with my goal of writing every day, which his how this even got churned out, so we'll see.

Sad news, though, I'm caught up to what I'd thought of ahead of time, so I'm not quite sure what direction to take this, now. I want it to _feel_ done, though, and it doesn't, so to be continued!


	3. Kindness

Kindness.

She's doing him a kindness, being hard on him. He is not her equal in station. He holds his bearing little better than the meanest slave, one her father would never have taken on at her estate. Untrained, unskilled, and clumsy. Such a slave would be an embarrassment to his Masters. He probably _was_ an embarrassment to his Masters. And now he would have been a thief, if circumstances were different: stealing a Tarkaan's war horse, running away, and as much as they called it "raiding" for supplies, it was really just more stealing, after all.

A thief. She had concocted a ruse worthy of tales told by bards, and now she found herself allied with this filth.

She likes Bree well enough. Hwin is charmed to be able to converse freely with another Horse from her homeland, and Aravis is content talking with him about the battles he's seen. Shasta says little, and then nothing.

 _Good_.

Journeying with a larger group is slow. Agonizingly slow for Aravis, whose ruse yet depends on speed. She _needs_ to get beyond Tashbaan. Needs to be out of danger of being found. Out of danger of being forced into her wedding. Bree, though, is talkative and friendly, passing the time with strange Horsey songs that can be sung to the gait of a trot, or else commenting on battles and other familiar, Calormene stories and people. It's nice to be able to talk about familiar, nice things, instead of dwelling on the hard thought that she is leaving the only home she's ever known and trading it for the adventure that finds them now.

She's doing Shasta a kindness, because for all that the North holds promises of freedom for Bree and Hwin, whose liberty had been cheated from them, it holds only mystery for herself, and she knows that Shasta has no idea what the North holds for him, and frowns at the unfairness of it: that the same journey should give equally to her, and to the likes of Shasta.

And the four of them travel on, mostly at nighttime, now, through larger villages and wider roads. Aravis shares provisions from her saddlebags to avoid the routine Shasta describes, where he would get off Bree's back and walk on foot through the village as Bree met him on the far side. It had been well and good for a slave purchasing food, or even a slave stealing food. But Aravis stands out too much in her brother's armor, and besides, she doesn't want to spend more time with Shasta than she has to.

Shasta frowns when she tells him so, and they bicker. And indeed, the four of them find themselves arguing, at every stop, what to do about the great city they come closer to every day, and how on earth they will pass through it.

It is a kindness Aravis allows; Shasta voices his opinions, his reasoning fairly sound, and their planning progresses, though they settle on something no one is completely happy with. A kindness when she realizes Shasta has no idea what he's in for, and his fright of the great city is laughable, but she says nothing scornful.

Shasta, despite the fear that shows so plainly on his expressive, pale-skinned face, doesn't complain of the stealing that needs done in order to further their plan. Nor does he lament using the very last of the stolen Tarkaan money in Bree's saddlebag in order to fairly purchase a plain set of clothes for Aravis, who must don a disguise that would make her appear to be every inch the lowly slave that Shasta is.

He presents her the clothes in triumph, even going so far as to offer a small smile. He's gotten the sizing right, and even paid extra for a frumpy, patched hat, because he says it will be a shame if she has to hack her hair off like they're doing to the horses' tails. A kindness, for their disguise, preserving her long, pretty hair, which might give the thing away before it starts.

She does him a kindness by thanking him for the ridiculous thing, and wearing it, when she changes, in the woods. Girls her age aren't the sort chosen to do this kind of slave work, and the baggy clothes – little more than rags, even if they are new – hide her gender, though Bree still nickers at her to hold her bearing without such a stiff spine. She retorts to him to do the same, and then the Horses must stop talking, because they are at the gates.

Walking into Tashbaan, it is a kindness Aravis shows Shasta, allowing him to go first, when he is lower-born than she. When they both know a slave's place is behind his betters.

It is a kindness that Aravis doesn't audibly scoff when she sees Shasta's hands shaking, even though he knows Bree is actually guiding them through the city, and Shasta has naught to do but walk and be receptive to Bree's silent nudging him for direction. It's not as hard for him. He doesn't understand. Aravis should be here in her finery. Soldiers should bow her through the crowds.

The soldiers they pass are far from standing at attention. They jeer at Shasta, throw a carrot at him, and scold him for using his Master's saddle-horse for pack-work.

Aravis sees how badly this frightens Shasta – his face is so expressive – and he retorts angrily.

And the soldier comes right up to Shasta and punches him in the face. "Take that, you young filth, to teach you how to talk to freemen."

"Yes, sir," Shasta says, pained. He stumbles but doesn't fall—the hit almost knocked him down—and Aravis feels fear enter her for the first time. She's dressed like a slave boy. If she has to take a hit, she doesn't think she'll be able to keep from crying out, like Shasta. She's never been hit in her life.

"Are…are you all right, Shasta?" Aravis breathes worriedly. Her hands are shaking now, too, and she is chagrined as Shasta offers her a wobbly smile. The hit had brought tears to his eyes, and Shasta wipes at them, now.

And…it's so brave. For Shasta, who was so apprehensive about coming into a big city when all he's known is a hut by the sea, and a life of fish. Aravis realizes, for the first time, that Shasta must give up everything he knows, too, in this adventure. And it isn't much, compared to her life of wealth, but…for him…it's still everything.

"I'm...I'm used to getting hit harder than _that_ ," Shasta answers her, a red mark showing on his expressive skin, shrugging his shoulders, saying nothing about how scared she probably looks, now, or the blood he spits onto the ground as he continues on. Showing her kindness.

It's a kindness she doesn't feel she deserves, right now.

* * *

Kindness.

Shasta finds kindness in Bree, when, in the depth of his own fear, running from the lions, he heeds Shasta's despairing plea; that for him, being caught by the Calormene lord on the horse was worse than being killed by the lions; Shasta would be hanged as a horse thief, and Bree would be fine.

Bree moves away from the Calormene on the other horse.

Shasta finds kindness in the lions. Leaving them alone, after the chase, and with their skins intact. Shasta had wondered, at the last, if he shouldn't perish, and does find kindness in letting Bree live, at least, if Shasta can't think of a story quick enough to satisfy any questions this young Tarkaan might pose—

"Oh, I _am_ so tired."

"Hold your tongue, Hwin, and don't be a fool."

Shasta finds kindness in…what? The fates? The gods? This adventure? For the Tarkaan warrior isn't of a mind to slay him—not of a mind to even stay with them. The Tarkaan warrior is actually a Tarkheena—a girl, disguised and running away to the North, just like himself and Bree.

"Why, it's only a girl!" he says aloud, relief in him.

The girl snaps at him, taking his relief as offense. He hadn't meant offense, and yet her tone bristles, and he snaps back.

It's a kindness to the others, Shasta sees, to go in a group. The mare, Hwin, is relieved at even the idea, as much as Shasta can guess, having been keeping company only with Bree these last weeks, and learning the odd language of Talking Horses, and just Bree in general, who could be quite rude, but never meant anything hard by it, and who gamely talked about Narnia, or else battles, or things Shasta found interesting, and would knock Shasta with his head in a friendly, horsey way, when Shasta took off his Saddle and bridle. It's in Hwin's tail, and the gentler, relaxing pace, and not only the tone of her voice, or the things she says.

It's a kindness, he supposes, that they can all immediately find comradery and companionship in one another's company. A kindness that they found one another at all, considering how they'd tried not to. And Shasta wonders again if it was…fated. Somehow.

Arsheesh, when he was in a peaceable mood, spoke often of his life as though it were dictated by fates and gods, and Shasta had never quite understood it fully; the concept that he and his life are but playthings to the whims of Beings greater than Shasta can comprehend is too much to conceive, and he feels much more comfortable in choosing his own life and being grateful to the gods when it goes well, and sometimes perhaps less than grateful if it doesn't. (But he is optimistic, and usually finds things to be grateful for, even when things aren't going well.)

Like now, for instance, as the travelling situation has changed, and Shasta feels snubbed. He doesn't get on with Aravis, and Aravis seems to encourage it. She can't release her old life, even as she runs away from it willingly. Hwin the mare is kind. Soft-spoken and often more apt to listen than to speak, Shasta enjoys the relief from the strong personalities of Aravis and Bree; the latter trying to teach the former an Equine song, sung at a trot, rather monotonously, and Hwin shyly nickers a horsey laugh, shared with Shasta, when they settle in to sleep.

The communication they do share, as they try to figure out how to pass through the great city of Tashbaan, is largely bickered and argued, and Shasta tries hard to let Hwin have a say, when he isn't busy being angry with Aravis. And ultimately, it's Hwin's plan they end up adopting, and Shasta is pleased she had her say.

Shasta extends kindness, in his actions, at least, if he can't extend words –he can't seem to say anything that Aravis doesn't find offensive, but he has watched her, and tried to learn her language, too. She is as uncomfortable about stealing as he is, though hers is a moral quandary, and Shasta's is more due to fear of having his hands cut off, or else being put to death if he is caught.

So, Shasta uses the last of the crimson-bearded Tarkaan's crescents to buy her clothes at the last village before Tashbaan. He puts in a bid for the patched hat atop the merchant's head, thinking what a shame it would be if Aravis had to shear off her lovely hair, just for a ruse that would get them through the city in the span of a single day. Hair she'd likely spent her whole life growing. She is very fond of it, he knows, and carries hairpins and a lovely brush and comb set in her saddlebags; she brushes and twists it deftly under the helmet she wears every day, pinning it in place with expert fingers, and even does so from atop Hwin's saddle, keeping superb balance.

It's a kindness she appreciates, when she emerges from the copse of trees wearing it.

It's a kindness that Aravis lets him lead. She feels more comfortable taking charge, and yet shows him kindness in letting him set their pace.

It's a kindness that the soldier knocks him, and not Aravis. If the soldier had decided to knock Aravis, she might have cried out and given away that she was a girl, which would have started uncomfortable questions about why she was dressed as a boy, and whether the horses belonged to them.

"Are…are you all right, Shasta?" Aravis asks softly. And Shasta realizes she's scared and offers a smile.

"I'm used to getting hit harder than _that_ ," he replies. And they continue.

It's a kindness Shasta feels, to know that they're all in the thick of it together, at least, and he's not had that feeling before.

Until they're separated.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

I'll finish this! I'll get on with writing things! \o/ Yiss!

Thanks for all the faves and reviews this has gotten so far! I love it! AAAAhhh! I love this book!

~Angela


	4. Uncertainty

Uncertainty.

She isn't used to this. This…absence of confidence. She's never had to make decisions that affect others. (This, she learns later, is a lie she has told herself – every choice made affects someone else's story.)

She stands there, in the middle of the busy street, hands shaking, clutching the reins of the two Horses, and she doesn't know what to _do_.

She plays it again in her mind: The bodies, pressing in the street. The cacophony of noise, human and animal and trumpet, and how _frustrating_ it was, there in the tumult, to continually have to make way for those more important than herself.

It never bothered her before today. And why was that? Because before today, she was someone more important, and others had to make way to her? It strikes her that these things she's learning are, in some way, very vital to know. How it _feels_ to be scared. How it feels to be someone not important.

Uncertain.

She wonders if this is how Shasta always feels. And is immediately chagrined at her treatment of him. Of course it is. Of course it is. He'd been smiling at her. Trying to reassure her that, despite the red mark on his cheek, and the way he'd pitched and almost fallen; despite the tears that he'd wiped away from his eyes, he was fine.

Even after he was elbowed to the very front of the crowd. Even after he lost hold of Bree's reins. Even when the foreigners – the Narnians – had taken him. He'd been shaken. Scared. But he'd still not given the thing away. He'd tried, at first, to catch Bree's eye, but then…looked at the ground. Hoping to not draw undue attention to her and the Horses.

Well, she can do that. Not draw undue attention.

She feels uncertain. But she doesn't have to _show_ it. She holds fast to the reins of the two Horses, who wisely kept very silent, and tries to think. To not lose her head. When the Narnian party passes, she starts to move on.

The plan was to get through Tashbaan. She can trust Shasta to meet them, once he manages to get away.

The thought is surprising. Unexpected. And unequivocally true. She can trust Shasta. She doesn't have to count him out.

More criers call to make way, and Aravis makes a sound in the back of her throat akin to a growl. She subsequently feels the nibble of a gentle, Horse-y mouth at the back of her shoulder, and obediently "makes way" for the next nuisance—

"—Way for the Tarkheena Lasaraleen!"

Aravis stares absently at the new party. She knows Lasaraleen, of course. She's married, now, with her own household to run. Her own very extravagant household, if the garb of her grooms, slaves, and pages is any indication. She doesn't intend any harm. Just an idle curiosity to lay eyes on her old friend, and see what she looks like, now.

Lasaraleen sees her. Their eyes meet.

Aravis' heart sinks.

"Aravis! What on earth are you doing here?" Lasaraleen calls loudly, and Aravis doesn't feel uncertain anymore. Perhaps the cure to uncertainty is just to take some kind of action. To make the decision and not worry so much about it.

Her action is instantaneous, dropping the reins of the Horses and vaulting herself into Lasaraleen's litter.

"Shut up! Do you hear! Shut up," she hisses into Lasaraleen's ear. And a solution to her dilemma pushes into her mind. "You must hide me. Tell your people—"

"But darling—"

"Do what I tell you, or I'll never speak to you again. Please, please be quick, Las. It's frightfully important."

She doesn't have to count Shasta out. The plan hasn't changed. They'd worked out what to do in the event they were separated. Shasta _will_ come. He _will_ meet them at the Tombs of the Ancient Kings.

She's certain of it.

* * *

Uncertainty.

He'd been in the way, and unable to back Bree, and pushed and jostled to the very front of the whole crowd as the criers proclaimed the newest reason for their delay:

"Way! Way! Way! Way for the White Barbarian King, the guest of the Tisroc (may he live forever)! Way for the Narnian lords!"

And instead of litters and bells and flowers perfuming the air, he saw the party; quite unlike any of the others they'd seen.

Shasta beheld kind faces, carefree and laughing and chatting. Whistling. Happy. He had just had the thought that he'd never seen anything quite so lovely. And the subsequent thought that he'd never say that aloud – Aravis would laugh at him, to be sure.

Then, it had all gone bad.

One of the happy men—a tall man with a straight sword hanging from his belt, who the others seemed to defer to as the leader—spotted him and cried out loudly – "There he is! There's our runaway!"

Uncertainty.

Shasta doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know what to say. Or whether he should say anything. He doesn't know how it has all gone so wrong so quickly.

"Shame on you, my lord!" the leader was saying in a scolding tone.

The others have drawn up to him, as well, and Shasta can't slip into the crowd, they're pressed too tightly against his back.

And it's not fair, they're all so much larger than him, and they are pulling him away by the hands, and he doesn't dare make a scene. Doesn't dare try to explain that they're in the wrong. Doesn't dare draw attention to the Horses or Aravis.

Aravis.

He looks desperately back at Bree, who's no help, looking about as stupid as a horse can. He almost wants to catch Aravis' eye, but…but he doesn't.

Uncertainty. Are these decisions right? If only he had time to think!

All their plans ruined, before they're even halfway through Tashbaan, without even a chance to tell the others goodbye. Shasta being led bodily away, firm grips holding his hands.

And Shasta remembers other times, when he's been in trouble, and being led to a place where punishment could be administered. Shasta doesn't know what to expect. A beating? A whipping?

Uncertainty.

What will they do with him? They've mistaken him for someone else, but it seems Shasta is to receive the punishment for him. The leader—the King, Shasta soon realizes—is asking him questions about where he's been, and how he'd gotten out, and what had happened to his clothes, and Shasta says nothing in answer.

He doesn't dare.

Not answering seems to be almost worse. The young King is disappointed in him, when he says nothing, and it's terrible, somehow, to disappoint him. Shasta remembered again how they had all looked, coming down the street. They had seemed all the very merriest group of people, and Shasta can't help but want to please them.

He can think of nothing to say that would not be dangerous.

Uncertainty.

They walk through a narrow street, and down some stairs, and through a wide archway, into a courtyard. And the noise of the crowd seems distant, now, because they're in a sort of garden, with trees and a fountain, and flowers that climbed up the white walls.

The chatter of the Narnians changes to remarking about the heat, and gratitude to be out of the sun, as they start to file through a pair of dark doors into a cool corridor.

"And your shoes, sir? Where hast thou displaced them?" the King asks in a grumpy way, and Shasta bites his lip.

"I…I don't know," Shasta says at last, wanting to make some kind of answer.

"You don't know," the King repeats. "I see."

Shasta feels his other hand released, so now it's just the King who holds on to him. The King is the one, then, who will administer the punishment?

"Edmund? Have you found—Oh Corin, Corin, how could you?"

The most beautiful lady Shasta has ever seen has appeared before them. She throws her arms around Shasta in an embrace, and then kisses his cheeks, not seeming to mind the sweat and dirt that stick to his skin.

Uncertainty.

Shasta flushes to the roots of his hair, but he's pleased, too. He's never been hugged so. So fiercely and tightly, like from a friend, or a mother. Arsheesh never hugged him, and Bree…well, Bree shows affection in a Horsey kind of way, but it's not the same. And Shasta has never really been close to anyone else.

The King and the beautiful lady are still scolding him, and Shasta is ashamed, and he can't place why. He has discerned that they have mistaken him for a prince of Archenland (Where or what Archenland is, Shasta has no idea) and the beautiful lady is tall and gracious and her dark hair is lovely and falls down and down her back, and Shasta inexplicably thinks of Aravis. Combing her hair prettily, and twisting it under her helmet from atop Hwin's saddle.

"Where hast thou been, Corin?" says the lady, her hands on his shoulders, and Shasta's heart is beating hard, and the carpet is thick and lovely under his feet, and he's still not sure what his punishment is, and the idea comes to his mind that this lady will strike him, and it would be so terrible, if she did that.

"I—I don't know," Shasta stammers again. He wants to tell them. They seem so kind. He wants to tell them something.

But the thought of Aravis flits through his mind again. And he's certain, now. No uncertainty. He must keep her safe. He mustn't say anything to them.

He daren't.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

This...this is gonna murder me. I love it, but pushing myself to write is exhausting.

Still not done. I need to see it through. It needs to feel done. And it's not. So...to be continued!

Reviews adored!

~Angeladex


	5. Patience

Patience

Aravis has known for a long while that the Gods didn't bless her with patience. And she feels, now, the sting of this folly.

Oh! If only time could move faster! And she could be past the wading through intricate plots and schemes and be free again. Free to go north with her companions.

And Patience takes a different meaning when she is dealing with Lasaraleen. Lasaraleen, of all people! Of all the silly, insufferable people!

Aravis knows, though, that Lasaraleen is just…what she is. She had been raised, as Aravis had, to believe that, for a woman, life was centered around parties and making a good marriage, and wearing fashionable things.

Unlike Aravis, Lasaraleen actually _enjoyed_ all of those things.

Aravis couldn't hold it against Lasaraleen that they liked different things, or valued different things.

And she feels the sting of the thought as, like before, she takes her own thought to heart.

Because really, Aravis shouldn't hold it against Shasta, either, that they liked and valued different things.

She wonders at these…revelations she continues to have. And appreciates, not for the first time, her rhetoric tutor, who had taught her to think of things in a different way. Her father always said it made her more stubborn, to be able to argue, but she finds value in…empathy.

Patience.

Patience is related to empathy, she thinks.

To see the other side of a situation. To see things from Lasaraleen's point of view. To help her at least understand where Lasaraleen is coming from, if not agree with her logic.

After Lasaraleen had finally heard Aravis' story, for example, the first thing she thought to say was, "But darling, why don't you marry Ahoshta Tarkaan? Everyone's crazy about him. My husband says he's beginning to be one of the greatest men in Calormen. He has just been made Grand Vizier now old Axartha has died. Didn't you know?"

And Aravis had to remind herself again to be patient.

Of course Lasaraleen missed the point entirely. All she knew—all she had been taught, and all that she was _expected_ to know—was parties, marriage, and fashion.

"I don't care," Aravis said, and it might have been too harsh. She made sure to speak gently. "I can't stand the sight of him."

"But, darling, only think!"

Patience.

Lasaraleen's logic was an endless loop of what she knew. And so now, she was trying to 'fix' Aravis.

"Three palaces, and one of them that beautiful one down on the lake at Ilkeen. Positively ropes of pearls, I'm told. Baths of asses' milk. And you'd see such a lot of _me_ ," Lasaraleen's tone was trying to persuade, and she ended her speech by gesturing to herself. As if seeing Lasaraleen made up for marrying an ugly man older than Aravis' father.

"He can keep his pearls and palaces as far as I'm concerned," Aravis returned, and it might have come out combative, and she really, honestly didn't want to hurt Lasaraleen's feelings, but the silly woman had no sense!

"You always _were_ a queer girl, Aravis," Lasaraleen said, and it was the first time she seemed to actually accept what Aravis had said. "What more _do_ you want?"

And so Aravis told her.

"It's more what I don't want, Las," Aravis said, sighing. "It's not that I have anything against Ahoshta Tarkaan. Not as a person, generally. But I certainly don't want to marry him. He's older than my father! And I don't want to marry anyone at all! I'm not interested in having a big house and lots of children and pretty dresses. At least, not right now. If I get married, I want it to be something I choose to do because…I don't know. I'm in love. Or because it's something I want. Not because my father wants to please Prince Rabadash and his court."

Lasaraleen, to her credit, who was so much more used to talking than listening, seemed to actually hear, this time, what Aravis said.

"Well, I certainly don't understand it. But if that's what you want, dear, then certainly you should have it. And I'll help you! You want to get out of the city. Well, I can get the horses out. We can just send them with a groom. No one will care," Lasaraleen said, and Aravis blinked. It was the first actually helpful contribution she had made.

"Thank you, Lasaraleen," she said, and she meant it.

"But I don't know what to do with _you_ , my dear. You can certainly use any of my clothes that you like. For a disguise. (Except this one I have on; don't you like it? I'm going to wear it—oh, never mind.) But they'll see your face. They'll remember, if your father asks them."

"Might I just go out in a litter? With the curtains drawn? Like we did this afternoon?" Aravis asked, and Lasaraleen shook her head.

"Litters never leave the city. There would be questions. You'd definitely be stopped," Lasaraleen returned.

Aravis nodded, and resumed thinking.

"Well, if it can't be done—" Lasaraleen started, when the silence had barely stretched half a minute.

"What about going over the wall? With ropes and things? The gates are guarded, but—" Aravis interrupted Lasaraleen, and she, in turn dismissed Aravis' comment.

"Not by yourself. You'd need someone to help on the other side. It's too tall. And doing it alone would take too long, which would then attract the attention you don't want. So I suggest we think—"

"Could we tunnel under?"

And so it went; Aravis made suggestions, if just to keep Lasaraleen to task, because she didn't seem to want to talk about it anymore.

Patience.

Aravis accepted this as her test from the Gods. She had already resolved to try and make things better with Shasta, when she saw him again. And she would practice by trying to make things work with Lasaraleen, now.

At last, after a long time of the discussion going this way, and no real progress being made, it was Lasaraleen who actually clapped her hands, saying she had it.

"Oh, I have an idea. There is _one_ way of getting out of the city without using the gates."

And Aravis listened as Lasaraleen's idea unfolded. It was a good one. Lasaraleen was smart to have thought of it. It was also dangerous, though. There was always the risk they could be caught. And if that happened…

"All would be lost," Aravis said aloud, and Lasaraleen tried to comfort her.

"Oh, darling, don't get so excited. I was going to say, even if we were caught everyone would only say it was one of my mad jokes. I'm getting quite well known for them. Only the other day—do listen, dear, this is frightfully funny—"

"I meant, all would be lost _for me_ ," said Aravis sharply.

Patience.

"Oh –ah—yes—I do see what you mean, darling. Well, can you think of a better plan?" Lasaraleen returned carefully, and Aravis felt guilty. At least Lasaraleen had _thought_ of a plan. An actual plan they could _use_. It was more than Aravis had done, and she knew she couldn't think of one better.

"No. We'll have to risk it," she admitted. "When can we start?" she added then, hopefully. Tonight? Now?

"Oh, not tonight," said Lasaraleen. "Of course not tonight. There's a great feast on tonight. (I must start getting my hair done for it in a few minutes) and the whole palace will be a blaze of lights. And such a crowd, too! It would have to be tomorrow night."

Aravis deflated. This was…bad news. But…at least there was a plan.

But…now there was the whole afternoon, and then all day tomorrow to wait.

Aaaaagggghhh, more waiting.

Patience.

Well, at least she knew what the Gods expected her to work on. It seemed she'd have the time.

* * *

Patience

It's a different sort of waiting game; the sort of learned patience that Shasta realizes he's been brought up to. It's not very pleasant, and it…makes him hungry.

There is a phrase, which you might know, and which Shasta did not, that explains the type of patience he's trying to describe: 'Waiting for the other shoe to drop.'

It's the type of patience Shasta had when, after a hard day's work, the fisherman came home, and Shasta couldn't predict whether he was in a good mood or not. A feeling like a stone in his stomach, not knowing whether what he'd done that day was anything like enough, and if he'd receive a kind word and a story as his reward, or if he'd receive a beating, instead.

It was often the beating. Oftener than he perhaps realized.

He had thought, once he was done being fussed over, that he would receive his punishment – or rather, the punishment meant for "Corin," who they were mistaking him for. Instead, the beautiful lady was so nice to him, and the King ordered him lovely food to eat, and other nice people to come and fuss over him; wash his face and hands, slip ice chips into his mouth to cool him.

He couldn't help but overhear their worries and their plans. Of course they spoke plainly in front of him; they thought him one of their own, and a child, besides.

(He almost had a pause, then, where something might have…cracked. Inside him. Because he didn't consider himself a child. And why not? Because he'd never been given leave to. He'd earned his keep all his life. And that wasn't really fair. Not in the least. But then a lovely iced drink was pushed gently to his lips by an insistent lady, and it was so sweet and good and cold that he rather forgot what he'd been thinking about.)

And now that he isn't as hot and desperate and afraid, and has time to put logic to the situation he finds himself in, he knows he really oughtn't have considered telling them, anyway. Grown-ups were like as not to spoil everything. And even if these Narnians would be kind to Bree and Hwin, who's to say how they'd react to Shasta or Aravis. Aravis who was very obviously a Calormene, and might be sold into slavery, or else sent back to her father, which she'd hate.

And he'd heard their plans. Who's to say what they'd do to _him_? He'd not have to worry about receiving Corin's beating. He'd likely as not be killed. And if the real Corin turned up, he would be, anyway.

The man with the goat's legs comes back, then, with a feast, and Shasta's mind is occupied with it. Lobsters and salad and snipe and truffles and melons and raisins and nuts and…and…by Tash was it all for _him_?

"Now, princeling," the goat-man said, smiling, "Make a good dinner. It will be your last meal in Tashbaan."

Shasta is struck with a chill of fear, for a moment, and the goat-man continues to merrily tell him all the things that await "him" when he got "home."

And…it sounds so nice. A suit of armor and a pony; a King for a father, and Knighthood under a King of Narnia.

Patience.

It isn't something spiny, when he eats. It isn't a stone in his gut as much as a vague sense of unease. He knows he can't completely relax into the part he's been assigned, because if they knew who he was, he'd never have been treated so well. He isn't worth this. Not a vagrant, beggar of a fisherman's son, travelling north on a by-all-accounts stolen Horse.

That sobers him quickly, as the little goat-man (his name is Mr. Tumnus, he reminds himself) tells him to rest, before they call him to board the ship, and set sail.

What if…it really was him? That got to live Prince Corin's life? How would that be?

What if he didn't turn up? And Shasta didn't make to escape right away? And he just…took over Prince Corin's life?

That…would be nice. He wouldn't have to worry about Aravis being rude to him, or toiling across a desert, or having his hands cut off, or be hanged as a horse-thief.

But…

If he sets sail for Narnia, who will meet Aravis at the tombs?

"Well how can I help it?" he mutters then, not realizing that the room is now quite empty, and that he can be trying to escape, if he had his wits about him. "Anyway, that Aravis thinks she's too good to go about with me, so she can jolly well go alone."

And with this dark thought, he falls asleep.

When he wakens, there is once again a stone sitting in his gut, and is surprised he's fallen asleep at all. He hadn't meant to. Though he really needn't have scolded himself for it; after a diet of cold, anxious terror for breakfast, chased with unexpected kindness, forced patience, and lovely food, it wasn't a wonder at all that he'd dropped off.

He knows it's been far longer than he should've slept, besides; the shadows are different in the room.

He closes his eyes again, but not to sleep. To focus.

Patience.

A plan will come, now. They're gone. Perhaps he can—

A familiar sound comes from the direction of the window, and he realizes that it's what had wakened him in the first place; something breaks. Or, rather, something breaks again. The pair of pitchers that had been on the sill were in pieces on the floor, now.

He sees a hand. Two hands. A fair head. Poking above the windowsill. Straining with effort, pulling in a body—it's a boy. He looks to be around Shasta's own age, and sports bruised, scabby knuckles, and a marvelous black eye.

"Who are you?" the boy whispers, his face morphing into confusion. He's a tooth missing, and his clothes (which must have been splendid ones when he put them on) were torn and dirty, and there was both blood and mud on his face.

"Are you Prince Corin?" breathes Shasta, hardly daring to believe his luck. Or misfortune.

Patience.

He shakes himself mentally. Really, would he have been prepared to throw everything away for living a lie? He would have taken this boy's life from him? And why? Because they looked similar? That wasn't fair at all.

(Not fair in the least.)

"Yes, of course," the boy answers. "But who are you?" he asks again. And his posture is expectant. He's had quite the adventure, but was probably ready to fight, if it came to that. And Shasta…wouldn't.

Though he does know how to take a hit, in all fairness, and might have been better than he thought.

"I'm nobody, nobody in particular, I mean," he mumbles. Best that they don't know his name. The name of the boy who wasn't the Prince, who'd eavesdropped on their plans. "King Edmund caught me in the street and mistook me for you. I suppose we must look like one another." He looks at the boy with a new eye as he says it. Prince Corin has fine, fair hair, just as Shasta does, though kept much neater; trimmed, combed, and cleaned, Shasta realizes his hair might even pass itself as the exact shade of pale blonde as the Prince's. "Can I get out the way you've got in?" he asks, as an afterthought. He needed to focus. He's lost the day, already. They'll be coming at any time to escort Prince Corin to the _Splendor Hyaline._ To Narnia and the North! But by sea.

"Yes, if you're any good at climbing," says Prince Corin. "But why are you in such a hurry? I say: we ought to be able to get some fun out of this being mistaken for one another." The Prince grins, and Shasta returns a thin smile.

"No, no," he says firmly. "We must change places at once. It'll be simply frightful if Mr. Tumnus comes back and finds us both here. I've had to pretend to be you. And you're starting tonight—secretly. And where were you all this time?"

One explanation later— through which Shasta was able to confirm that Prince Corin would have fought him, before, and probably knocked him down—and after evading what could have been a small quarrel, because there _wasn't time_ , and Shasta had hastily summarized his own story without mentioning Aravis— he didn't want her involved—he was sitting on the windowsill, looking at Prince Corin's face, again, realizing that…they were friends.

Corin's face split into a grin. "Good-bye. And _good_ luck. I do hope you get safe away."

Shasta returned a larger smile more readily. "Good-bye. I say, you have been having some adventures," he returned, because it seemed the thing to say.

"Nothing to yours," said the Prince. "Now drop; lightly—I say."

Shasta dropped, and Corin craned his head out the window. "I hope we meet in Archenland. Go to my father King Lune and tell him you're a friend of mine."

Shasta really couldn't believe his luck. And it hadn't gone wrong, as he'd expected it to.

Patience.

He hadn't won the game, yet.

There was yet time for the other shoe to drop.


	6. Perseverance

Perseverance

Aravis wonders if one would _know_ if they were going mad. She feels she is, with each minute that drags into each hour and feels like decades dragging into centuries. She had been relieved to sleep in a bed, after the nights going without, but the morning had dragged insufferably, and the afternoon had dragged even worse.

Aravis tunes back in to Lasaraleen's words as talk of last night's party begins to transition to talk of tonight's party, and she realizes that Lasaraleen is ready to back out of the whole plan when she starts to talk about the land to the north, Narnia, being a country inhabited by demons and sorcerers, and covered in snow and ice, besides.

"And with a peasant boy, too!" says Lasaraleen, then, just as Aravis had thought she'd found her opening to quietly slink away. "Darling, think of it! It's not Nice!"

Perseverance.

It's more than half-over, now. Aravis has thought and thought and thought about it until her head spins, and has decided that, yes, travelling with Shasta— _across a desert_ —was really rather more fun than fashionable life in Tashbaan with Lasaraleen.

"You forget that I'll be nobody, just like him, when we get to Narnia," she replies stiffly. (She thinks later that she might have to adjust her language in her telling the story to Shasta, who she can just see getting miffed about her calling him 'nobody' when it's not even the point.) "And anyway, I promised," she finishes with a shrug, which, to Lasaraleen, might be the worst thing she could have chosen to say.

"And to think, that if you only had sense you could be the wife of a Grand Vizier!" she says passionately, falling back into her pillows.

Aravis does slip away, then, to talk the plan over with the Horses.

She falls into complaint, but holds her tongue when Hwin remarks gently that she shouldn't say such rude things about the woman who is hosting them.

She's right, of course, and Aravis leans in close to Hwin, her fingers habitually twining in the gentle Mare's mane.

Hwin rests her head on Aravis' shoulder—the Horse-y approximation of an embrace—and then pulls back and blows Aravis' hair away from her face with a great 'whuff,' and Aravis can't help but smile.

"I wonder if Horses have Human friends, in Narnia," Hwin wonders, and her ears come forward, all attention and seriousness. "I mean to say, would it be considered gauche to be petted and preened over? Do you think?"

"Moreover," Bree blusters, butting into the conversation with the air of one who can't help it—"Do you know if the Horses in Narnia _roll_?"

Aravis' smile morphs into a full-blown laugh. Hwin quickly joins in, with a high, Horse-y neigh that drowns out whatever sound Aravis had been making. Bree is not amused.

Perseverance.

This is what her Patience has yielded her.

"Oh, Hwin, I don't care a fig, as long as you don't, either," she says when they've quieted down.

"I agree," Hwin says, nodding emphatically in the exaggerated fashion that horses have.

"Oh, you're no help at all," Bree mutters indignantly. "Tell us of this plan that you and your Tarkheena friend have cooked up, Aravis," he says a moment later, all business.

"Well, for your part, you must go with a groom a little before sunset down to the Tombs," Aravis complies, though not without sharing a last smile with Hwin. "No more of those packs. You'll be saddled and bridled again. But there'll have to be food in Hwin's saddle-bags and a full water-skin behind yours, Bree."

Both Horses are silent, listening with their ears alert, pointed up and listening intently.

"The man has orders to let you both have a good long drink at the far side of the bridge," Aravis adds.

"And then, Narnia and the North!" Bree intercepts. "But what if Shasta is not at the Tombs."

He doesn't phrase it like a question, and Aravis frowns. "Wait for him, of course."

"Obviously," Hwin interjects.

"I hope you've been quite comfortable," Aravis breaks in, addressing Bree, and hoping he won't start bickering with Hwin. It's what Shasta would have done, if Aravis had made a jibe at him like that.

Bree, however, doesn't seem to be bristled at all. "Never better stabled in my life. But if the husband of that tittering Tarkheena friend of yours is paying his head groom to get the best oats, then I think the head groom is cheating him."

Aravis feels in much better spirits after talking with the Horses (because they make sense), and steels herself to convince Lasaraleen into continuing on with the plan.

She uses diplomacy, and she mentally sends prayers of thanksgiving and blessings of prosperity to her rhetoric tutor, whose lessons are really serving her much better than embroidery or dancing. (She really thanks Tash that she hasn't had to use her dancing lessons, she had been quite awful.)

Aravis doesn't need to change Lasaraleen's mind about the plan itself—which is to sneak Aravis out through a certain water-door that is only used and known about by the Tisroc's (May he live forever) staff and friends—she just needs to change Lasaraleen's opinion of the plan; namely to make her invested in it being good because she's the one who thought of it.

"Really, you're so ingenious to have thought of this," she flatters shamelessly, as they sit to supper in the pillared room. "I would have thought and thought and never come up with a plan half so clever." Aravis doesn't even have to pretend the sincerity of her compliments, which Lasaraleen obviously responds to.

Lasaraleen preens and goes on about how she's such good friends with the Tisroc's (May he live forever) people, and Aravis has already heard it, but now at least she expected the conversation to take this route.

In the next several hours, Aravis asks Lasaraleen's opinion of what to wear— "Really, it's your plan, Las," she says, and it's hard to put humility in her voice, but she manages. "You know best."

And it works so well that Lasaraleen is urging them out the door not two hours later, on foot, greeting absolutely everyone they came across, and loudly showing off Aravis as a superior house-slave she'd brought as a present for one of the princesses in the palace. Aravis just grins behind the veil that covers her face.

Perseverance.

She's lasted this long. They are almost there. The plan is working.

She has only to endure a little longer.

* * *

Perseverance.

The ground is hot on his feet after the coolness and softness of that room he'd been in, and Shasta has to allow them to acclimate. It helps once he has left the roof and scrambled up the wall Corin had mentioned, taking a moment to get his bearings before leaping back down to street level, where a rubbish heap is there to break his fall, just as Corin said it would be.

Tashbaan is really just a great hill, and Shasta sees that he's come over the top of it, and now he can see the rest of the great city arrayed before him: flat roofs and towers and battlements belonging to the city's northern wall, and then the river, and a short slope of green gardens—

Oh.

Oh, great Tash above.

To Shasta, who has lived his life with the great Eastern Sea as his constant companion, what stretches before him is comparable to it, flat as a calm sea—a great yellowish-gray thing, and stretching for miles and miles, into the horizon, which is dotted by blue things, jagged and lumpy—"The desert! The mountains!" Shasta breathes, and he jumps down onto the rubbish heap, and then he's running as fast as he can—down a narrow street, which opens into a wider one, where more people are—Shasta is uneasy, but doesn't break his pace—indeed he feels, now, the folly of having slept, earlier, and wishes he could fly—and really, if he thinks on it, no one would pay any mind to a ragged slave running barefoot. No one ever has before; the only thing that had gained him notice earlier was being in the company of the Horses.

And his anxiety melts when he turns a corner and sees the great gate before him.

He slows, finally, for there are many more people here, jostling and taking up room, wanting to leave just as quickly as Shasta does, and he is pressed a little, and forced into the crowd which becomes more of a line, because of the narrowness of the gate, and then he is through.

There are gardens about, and cool grass beneath his feet, and the river water is clear and fresh and delicious, and after the noise and heat of Tashbaan, the soft rushing sound is welcome and calming.

Shasta calms his rabbiting heart, taking water in sips and then, when he is ready, he goes on.

Taking a path that doesn't seem to often be used, he finds himself walking between gardens, enjoying the quiet, and coming upon a gentle slope. At the top of the slope, he stood and stared. It was like coming to the end of the world for all the grass stopped quite suddenly a few feet before him and the sand began: endless level sand like on a sea shore, but a bit rougher, he notices, because it is never wet.

The mountains in the distance seemed to loom, far, far off, but greatly to his relief, Shasta sees, about a five-minute walk away on his left, what must certainly be the Tombs, just as Bree had described them.

Perseverance

He has come from his place of uncertainty and dread to here, now, in less than twenty minutes' time. Who's to say Bree and the others aren't already waiting for him?

The sun is setting, now, in Shasta's face, which makes it hard to tell if anyone is there, or has left a sign; not that he'd be able to see it, anyway.

A long search, though, tells him that no one is there. And then, when the sun is set, proper, he hears a horrible sound and all but jumps out of his skin before realizing it's only the horns from the city: the same horns he'd heard this morning (was it only this morning?) when the gates had been opened. Tashbaan is closing its gates. Night is nigh, and Shasta – after berating himself for being so scared—realizes two things: First: if he is shut out, it also means that the others are shut in. (Or, that they'd left without him.) Second: He is well shut-out, and that means he is going to have the spend the night…here. Amongst the Tombs of the Ancient Kings.

He tries to comfort himself first by assuring himself that the others had not left without him.

Well…Aravis might've.

But…but not Bree! Bree wouldn't—would he?

And the Tombs observe him silently; great masses of mouldering stone, shaped like gigantic beehives, but a little narrower, black and grim, in the darkness.

Very likely haunted.

Something brushes his leg at that moment, and Shasta jolts in terror, too frightened to run. He looks down and allows his heart to feel relief.

It's a cat.

Shasta has been enemies with cats all his life: fish were his father's livelihood, and his first instinct is to find a stone to throw.

But…this cat isn't a threat to him. It hasn't done anything.

"Puss puss," Shasta murmurs, bending toward the cat cautiously. "I suppose you're not a _talking_ cat."

It's large, for a cat. Isn't it? Shasta isn't sure whether he'd say its tail came up to his knee or his thigh, when the cat walks past, it's so dark, and the cat puts forth an air of nonchalance; it maybe lives here, amongst the Tombs. Maybe it has for years. Alone. Its eyes glint eerily in the dim light as it turns and stares at Shasta. And then walks away.

Shasta isn't sure why, but he follows it.

The cat meanders through the Tombs – there were twelve of them, in all—and Shasta follows. When the cat reaches the desert side of the Tombs, it stops, and sits down, bolt upright, with its tail curled round its feet and its face set northward—toward Narnia and the North, as Bree would say—as still as if it were watching for some enemy.

Shasta sits, as well, and then, after some thought, he lies down, with his back to the cat, and his face toward the Tombs. He would much rather face toward the danger, and feel something warm and solid at his back.

Perseverance.

This isn't so bad. He needs only sleep through the night, and then morning will come.

The cat purrs, and it sets him sleeping, though it's not restful—it seems, even in his dreams, that he is worrying and fretting and anxious about where Bree and the others are.

He is awakened by animal noises. He's not sure what the noises are, but all he has to compare them with are lions, though they don't actually sound much like lions.

But there are more than one, and they are coming closer.

He turns his back on the Tombs, scanning the horizon, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of what was making the noises, but sees nothing.

He has the thought that he might make a run for it – through the Tombs, toward Tashbaan.

But…then there would be the ghouls of the Tombs to contend with. For surely, at night, they were haunted, and in the dark entrances lurked unimaginable horrors.

He is about to try, anyway, because the teeth of beasts seem more real to him, the louder the sounds grow, but then a huge animal bounds into view, between him and the desert. It is silhouetted by the moon, and so looks quite black. All Shasta can tell for certain is that it goes on four legs, and has a great, shaggy head. And it is big.

It didn't seem to have noticed Shasta, for it suddenly stopped, turned its head toward the desert, and let out a roar.

It's…gods above.

It seems to echo and re-echo through the Tombs, and shake through the sands at Shasta's feet. It trembles in the air, even after the sound has ceased, and the cries of those other creatures—whatever they were—abruptly cease.

Then the great beast turns to examine Shasta.

 _It. It. It's a lion. I know it's a lion._

Shasta can only shut his eyes and teeth tight, wondering how much it will hurt, or if anything would happen to him, after he died—

Something warm lies down at his feet.

Shasta opens his eyes, and there, looking up at him with green, unwinking eyes…

is the cat.

"Oh, puss," gasps Shasta, relieved, "I am _so_ glad to see you again. I've been having such horrible dreams." Shasta all but collapses back to the position he'd been in at the beginning of the night, back to back with the cat, the warmth of it spreading all over him.

"I'll never do anything nasty to a cat again as long as I live," says Shasta, half to the cat, and half to himself. "I have done, you know," he admits to the cat. "I would throw stones—Hey! Stop that!"

Because the cat has turned round and given him a scratch.

Sudden violence notwithstanding, the cat begins to purr again, and Shasta is lulled to sleep.

When he wakes, the cat is gone, the sand is hot, and Tashbaan is loud and bustling enough that Shasta can hear it, but amongst the Tombs, where Shasta is, everything is…calm. Still.

Perseverance.

He's done it. He's made it through the night.

He looks around him with new eyes, refreshed from his sleep. The Tombs are silent and empty, but hardly haunted. He also looks at the mountains, in the distance, and sees a particular one whose tops seems to split into two peaks.

 _Start at the Tombs of the Ancient Kings and ride northwest so that the double peak of Mount Pire is always straight ahead._

Double peak. That mountain must be Mount Pire, then. Bree had said to go straight North, but Shasta had heard the Talking Raven when the Narnians had made their plans; he heard the instructions in his mind, clear as anything, in the Raven's croaking voice.

"That's our direction, judging by what the Raven said," he mutters aloud to himself. "So I'll just make sure of it, so as to not waste any time when the others show up." And he sets to making a furrow in the sand; a straight line that points directly toward the twin-peaked mountain. (And then he rests for a moment, in the shade of a Tomb, where the sand isn't uncomfortably warm on his bare feet.

And how much easier it is to think these thoughts now, in the daylight, after he's rested, and can again think clearly; their plan had been clear. If they were separated, they were to meet at the Tombs of the Ancient Kings. And surely, even if they had waited and missed Shasta, they would have found a way to communicate it to him. Just as he's done, now, by marking their path in the sand.

Perseverance.

It's much easier to do so, when he's marked their path, and come back to tarry by the gates of Tashbaan; he does a little raiding, and is polishing off the delicious pips of a pomegranate, when he wants to wash the red juice from his hands.

And he goes, a little bit away from the gate, and gives his hands a wash, and takes a drink, and then, he even dips in himself, and what a relief it is to feel the cool water, and to dunk under and feel the stillness of silence.

Waiting and waiting and waiting again, then, the whole day through. He thinks of the boy—the Prince who looked like him—and wonders if they got off all right.

He feels another pang, when he thinks of those fine, nice people who had fed him and fussed over him…thinking him a deceitful traitor.

As the hours while away, he does start to feel his old anxiety in his gut. When they arranged to wait for one another at the Tombs, no one had said anything about how long. He couldn't wait here for the rest of his life! And soon it will be dark, again, and is he to have another night like last night? Frightened and dreaming (or perhaps they hadn't been dreams) of wild beasts and haunted Tombs.

Perseverance.

He must only think of a plan. And it seems he has the time to do it.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

I don't know that I'm as pleased with this one, but I'm keeping the timeline consistent, dang it, and it's _hard_!

I took more freely from the book, this time; I was finding whole passages that I used for exact text, changing only little bits, or leaving things out.

(This is really a labor of me trying to merge my headcanons for this story with the text and also the Radio Theater version of this book that I have, which adds small bits of dialogue that I really like and I think add loads of context.)

Gosh, though. First I couldn't find my word, because really, when they're separated, it's all about patience, but I didn't want to make the previous chapter too long, so I needed it broken up.

Also, I've been out of sync with Narnia, as stuff had been happening with life, but I keep getting reviews and messages and I HEAR AND OBEY I PROMISE. I _want_ to write the things that y'all want to read. I really do. And with Quarantine, it's not like I'm pressed for time.

(I'm a teacher, irl, so...no students! Loads of flexibility. And also my tenant in the basement is showing cold symptoms, so self-quarantine is a must.)

ANYHOODLE. Thanks for your continued interest in this! I do read reviews and messages and so THANK YOU for keeping me motivated. :)

~Angeladex


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